Heartbreak And Hope Ch 11

Motorway= UK And Cornwall Islands term for the US 'Interstate Highway' though The Cornwall Islands version is more like the UK version with narrower medians.

Movie Max fictitious series: July Eighteenth is about an alien invasion with aliens that experiment on humans.

Revenant is a fictional series about a ghost that can possess people.

Bloody Omaha is a fictitious series about the US D-Day landings in June 1944.

Robert is about Robert Smalls who was a US Civil War era slave who stole a Confederate supply ship to free a group of slaves and himself. He eventually served in the US Congress.

This chapter makes reference to the movie Team America World Police which is full of juvenile and gross jokes. If you need context the Youtube codes are LasrD6SZkZk, iKqGXeX9LhQ, MYECYfY7Gu8

Dark ride: An indoor amusement ride that transports passengers through a series of specially lit scenes using guided vehicles. Disney's Haunted Mansion is an example.

This whole series is long and descriptive with lots of details to paint a picture in your mind.

Saturday, July 18, 2020

The shuttle bus took us to breakfast at Captain Joe's again and once we had all sat down, Claire led the morning meeting over breakfast, "Good morning couples! Today is the first day of a special shoot for the nudoir books. We will be heading to Robert Stephens Falls. The Cornwall Islands were never a slave colony thanks to our first Governor Robert Stephens, a Quaker which was a prominent anti-slavery organization. The government honored Robert Stephens, not only as our first governor in 1689, but also in honor of his staunch anti-slavery values. There were no permanent settlements until then due to fighting over The Cornwall Islands in the Anglo Dutch wars which had ended five years previous."

"This beautiful waterfall measuring forty feet high will be the backdrop for a photo session which will include makeup artists who will use water resistant makeup. You will all receive a class on photography concepts from none other than Jean Claude Debreux who was one of the photographers for Playboy from 1978 to 1984."

This was the first time we were going to be taking photos for the book, "Jennifer smiled... sort of then looked at me, "Joshua. Can we make this book more glamorous than sexual? I love the idea of making this book with you and I hope you love it when we are done... But... we literally have dozens of videos taken with my vagina open and your cum leaking out of me and they are going to be on the internet. Can we tone this one down?"

I nodded and was good with it. I took what she said on our wedding day to heart, "Don't tell me how I feel."

The falls were an hour to the Southwest of town in a hilly area of forest and the parking was a good half mile from the falls. We hiked a fairly easy path along the Stephens River to the base of the falls to see yet another picture postcard view of the waterfall which collected in a pool at the bottom. The pool was surrounded by a grassy flat area on the far side of the pool where they had five makeup artists waiting with chairs and makeup tables. I'll give credit, they were ready for us and Jennifer was in the second group of five so we had our class on manual camera settings with Jean Claude during the time the first group was having their makeup and hair done.

Jennifer asked if I had anything special in mind and I only asked that she not go for "Tammy Faye Baker" makeup as in too much. Jennifer was a pretty light touch with makeup at home and I always appreciated that. The request went well when she asked, "So you like me natural?"

I answered, "I love you being natural."

Her smile... I could see she relaxed as she understood I was on board with the book being softcore rather than hardcore. SCORE! I melted her heart completely with that one. I had no idea it would play so well, but I'll take the win.

When we were introduced to Jean Claude Debraux, now aged seventy-five. I appreciated that he emphasized beautiful poses with the beautiful scenery in the background over commercial overly bright and unnatural ones. Under his direction, I took almost two hundred pictures of my gorgeous wife. Two of the pictures ended up being my favorites; in one she is mostly walking away and toward the pool at the base of the waterfall and she is looking back at the camera over her shoulder. You only see her bottom and a bit of side boob, but her expression is coy and she has the warmest smile. The second was near the end when she dove into the deeper part of the pool then turned around and came back, hair wet and slicked back, walking toward the camera. It was fairly tame frontal nudity, but again, her smile... with a hint of 'You're getting laid later tonight' in her eyes.

To me, she is the ultimate beauty in female form.

Dinner was Burger Whirled, yes again, and no one complained when Movie Max took a vote on where to take us for dinner. BTW their Garlic Parm French Fries are yet another item that went on my too long favorites list.

Sunday, July 19, 2020

The TV alarm went off at a quarter after five and, ugh! That was early! After a quick breakfast in our place, we met our shuttle van at six that morning. I had heard that it was going to be worth it and certainly hoped so. It was ten minutes to the ferry and ten minutes across the harbor but another hour and a half ride west of the town of Devon to... Fuck! It was huge!

Most of us were dozing in the shuttle van taking the C4 Motorway Westward from Devon when we heard Sophia exclaim, "Oh!"

She had been roused as we came to stopped traffic and she was looking through the windshield. Earlier I was told the park was supposed to be a lot like an overlarge six flags. MaxPark was Six Flags plus Disney World plus a movie studio park in a single park and the scale was like comparing the average kid in a weekend peewee league to an NFL Lineman. Some of the other park owners claimed their parks were big and the owners of MaxPark took that as 'challenge accepted'.

At the entry to the road leading into the parking lot, 'standing guard' were a full size Optimus Prime, Bumblebee and Ratchet from the Transformers Movies and in the distant background, a full size USS Enterprise starship almost 950 feet long and 240 feet high. A larger ferris wheel and a massive observation tower that dwarfed them all.

This was even more impressive because: Roller coasters. So many roller coasters and you could see the first hill of many of them looming in the distance. They told us that they had used themes in MaxPark that were owned by Movie Max and it turns out they had acquired the rights to the Paramount franchises. I had not been following the news about MaxPark all that closely due to, well, life in general being a whirlwind of change.

We were all silent taking in the scale of it all as we drove inside toward the dropoff zone at the front of the parking lot. I have no idea how many billions had been spent on the complex and the cost was almost unfathomable. It wasn't just the park, hotel chains had poured money into the area.

Obviously, we were all excited. There is a term for being too old to enjoy an epicly huge amusement park: Dead.

I had read at work that the whole area had been filled to a minimum height of thirty-five feet above the high tide line from an average of twenty. The cost just for that was enormous. Ordinary people were hurting, gazillionaires, not so much, and they had poured a LOT of money into this project including a soon to be finished light rail line from the ferry docks in Devon to a station in the center of the hotel blocks and shopping area surrounding a manmade lake. It wasn't just Movie Max and whoever else was backing them directly. Hotel towers lined the far side of the park on the Atlantic Ocean and further to the right of them were three cruise ship piers with four cruise ships docked in four of the six berths.

After getting out of the van, we followed Jay to the ticket office where he conferred with someone and presented his phone. After that, we were ushered to a side entry gate marked, 'Groups' where we received a red wristband with a barcode and gold lettering, 'Movie Star'.

Once inside, Jay took us to the side then into a small adjacent office, "Good morning couples! As you can see MaxPark is truly Max! Well, we have a new request for you all for today. Obviously, they are not going to give us the whole park today so I am going to ask everyone to carry around an Airtag so our video people can find you.

Jay explained, "We do not have one video crew per couple and this park is over eighteen hundred acres so we are asking for some cooperation. I am going to provide the text number of our director who is in an office in the park. If you are going on a major ride or doing something interesting, just text them the word 'hi' so we can send a video person to get video. They have pretty good zoom lenses on their cameras today so they won't be in your face, but understand that we have purchased the high-end pass that costs three hundred fifty dollars instead of the standard eighty. It includes food at any of the in-park restaurants, yes including the sit down restaurants. We are asking that you help us locate you when you make use of your more expensive park pass which not only includes food and drink, it includes five 'Red Carpet' passes. Which are the short wait lines for each of the major rides. Don't waste them on small rides, use them when the line is long for one of the major rides."

Jay smiled, "As to scale, eighteen hundred acres is about three square miles. There are trolleys on the ground and cable gondolas overhead to get you from point A to point B and the entire park is surrounded by a steam train loop along the edge. Because this park was built ground up and they learned the lessons from other parks, things are not crammed on top of each other and are more spread out. Use the transportation system and your feet will thank you later."

Jay pointed at the wall where there was a QR code on the wall marked 'Park Map'. That sure beat having to carry a paper map when we had no pockets to put them in. Jay ended with, "Understand rides here have ratings up to what Americans would think of as rated R and 15+ in the UK though I would say 17 is a better indicator. Not everything in the park is G-rated and each sign will give the reason for the rating. You have been warned. One final word. Look around, you may see familiar faces somewhere in the park. Lecture over. Have fun."

Jennifer started pulling me toward the full-size Starship Enterprise and I had no idea she was a Trekkie, er Trekker as they prefer. As asked, I texted 'hi' to the director though I suspect he or she was getting lots of messages while it was early and lines were short. The line led into a lobby where we were grouped with thirty-eight other park guests, then they closed the door and we were greeted by the only person dressed. A black woman perhaps around age thirty entered the lobby dressed in a Starfleet uniform and greeted us 'in character', "Welcome cadets..."

The group of forty was broken down into eight groups of four to eight people where we entered another door that was made up to look like a Star Trek shuttle. In truth, it was just an elevator with a screen that showed us going into orbit that took us up to the saucer section that held the ride which was more of a show. We gathered in another lobby made to look like a shuttle bay then walked up to the bridge where they started a 'tour for cadets' which was interrupted by a Dominion attack. There was a space battle where they took several members from the audience which included Cara who made a badass weapons officer.

We won the battle. I know. Duh, but the ship was 'so badly damaged' we had to evacuate the now crippled Enterprise and 'Return to Earth.' Lots of fun.

The Trouble With Tribbles ride was in a separate building on the ground and was a typical if rather funny 'dark ride' type ride themed around the 'Trouble With Tribbles' episode of the original series. They dropped tribbles on you at the end. At the end signs assured us that the whole system laundered the 'tribbles' after each use and we were allowed to each keep a tribble which was just a furry blob. At the gift shop at the end of the ride you could purchase one of three inserts, one just a stuffing for five dollars, one animatronic but random, and finally one was fully phone controllable animatronic. Jennifer wanted us both to have the fully phone controlled tribble and I wasn't dumb enough to argue with her so eighty bucks later, we had them.

Cara paid ten bucks for the video version of her adventure and Maxpark had a better idea than the places that sold USB sticks. They texted her an email link so she did not have to carry around a USB stick all day.

They had another smart idea and I'll have to hand it to MaxPark. You could rent a locker which was free if you bought ten dollars worth of stuff then put a hundred dollar deposit down and gave them your home address when you set it up. They took your address and shipped your stuff automatically at the end of the day and refunded the difference after shipping charges if you did not pick up the items at the end of the day. It ended up costing twenty bucks shipping for us and we did not have to carry our tribbles and other things we bought around all day.

Next to 'Star Fleet' was the 'Yellowstone' area. '1883' is a typical dark ride in a faux covered wagon with attacks from Native Americans and a faux 'river crossing'.

The 'Yellowstone' ride was a laser shooter dark ride somewhat similar to the Buzz Lightyear Ride at Disney World. They were pretty smart to not have the shooting game based on taking out outlaw bikers and land speculators rather than basing it on 1883 and shooting Native Americans which would surely bring in a ton of protests.

After leaving the Yellowstone section we headed to the closest roller coaster, a fairly typical suspended coaster named Mercury which travelled over gardens and water features. After that, we went on Sawyers Flume, a larger, but typical flume ride with a California Gold Rush theme.

It was pretty much getting on one ride that was next to the other as we took advantage of the early lack of lines to the Soaring Eagle, a large wing coaster where we sat eight across under a fiberglass bald eagle figure and then rode a bobsled coaster named Kangaroo which is a near copy of the rather tame original coaster The Wild Mouse.

We had managed to finish the Star Fleet and Yellowstone sections plus one another of the flume rides and the roller coasters when we decided to take an early lunch at half past eleven then it would require quite a bit more standing in line or using one of our Red Carpet passes.

We headed to the Top Gun section of the park and saw there was quite a line for the Maverick ride which made it clear our decision to eat an early lunch was a good one before the food places filled up.

Red October Subs was better than some of the burger stands we saw, but below the full sitdown restaurants we saw in the park map we had on our phones. My Philly Steak sub and Jennifer's Honey Mustard Chicken Sub were well above the norm and neither was so large as to make us feel overfull for a full afternoon of rides.

'F14 Tomcat' based on the original Top Gun was our first Red Carpet pass. A typical, if very long at over five minutes, steel coaster that went fast, but not as fast as the 350 foot high vertical drop roller coaster 'F35'.

After the long wait in the sun, Jennifer wanted to do something with a shorter line and not burn all our Red Carpet Passes all at once. Next to us was 'Rom Com'. There was a sign In front of the theatre, 'Age 13+ Crude Humor.' Jennifer pointed and nodded with a hopeful smile telegraphing, 'I know you will hate it but... please?!"

Sigh! She gave me puppy dog eyes and you know damn well I gave in. I saw Cara dragging Jayson in a few minutes later just as the door closed. It was a theatre style show but with audience participation. I was ready to be tortured for the advertised half-hour show.

I liked it! Sue me.

It was a romcom, but... It made fun of every rom-com cliche there was and as a bonus, had tons of sharp sarcasm then added even more master ninja level sarcasm into the dialog and the show did not take itself seriously at all.

As I said, the show featured audience participation and Jayson and Cara were picked. They took the parts of the Characters 'Jayson and Cara', yes I know, how original. They were taken backstage for a couple of minutes for instructions. Each had a 'director' giving them instructions before the scene, often done with sarcasm as the director told them how amazing their acting skills were and how they were surely destined to be A-listers in Hollywood. Of course they had other cast members holding up giant cue cards to keep them on track.

It started with Jayson finding his fiance Brittany McCheat making out with Dirk Cox. Brittany was a giant chested bleach blond and Dirk was a NFL Quarterback billionaire movie star doctor yoga-instructor and mime. Yes, really. Mime.

Of course, Jayson had to go to a bar to drown his sorrows and a random stranger immediately made a ridiculous bet of a million dollars and 'An Amazon Gift Card' that Jayson could not catch the eye of the movie starlet 'Cara Starr'. This led to Jayson confidently saying the ultimate romantic pickup line to Cara, 'Hi'. Cara took one look at him then they immediately started making out and I mean the wettest tongue-down-the-throat makeout snog.

They managed to cover the 'left at the altar', 'faux breakup', and subsequent 'chocolate ice cream binge' where Cara managed to 'eat' more than ten gallons of ice cream using fake ice cream and a prop bowl that made it disappear. Not many women can burp on cue, Cara can, and not just a little 'bip'. Nice touch!

Several scenes later, there was the cliche scene as Jayson sang to Cara in an over-the-top bar scene where Cara just happened to be there and the desperate Jayson was going to impress Cara with his singing to win her back. The obvious dub still worked as Jayson sang 'Rock Your Baby' by George Mcrae where Jayson did a scarily good job of the hip swaying- thrusting dance of the mid 1970s video from American Bandstand.

The final cliche was when this huge muscled black guy 'Dashawn Dickson' who had a huge prosthetic thirty inch dick tried wooing Cara with the most ridiculous and obvious pick up artist moves and lines yet she declared her everlasting love for Jayson. Then Jayson 'punched out' Dashawn at the end with a telegraphed Popeye roundhouse punch that was three feet from Dashawn, but somehow the punch sound announced he had hit and Dashawn who went flying backwards and Cara leapt into his arms with 'My hero!' and they made out porno style again.

The end? The director directed everyone and nearly the whole fucking audience sang the end song as 'Credits' rolled. The song: Old Fashioned Love Song by Three Dog Night. Did I sing along with ninety percent of the rest of the audience? Damn right I did! Jennifer was loving that I was singing along with her.

Jayson did get to keep the twenty-five dollar Amazon gift card. Too bad about the million dollars he did not get. I paid ten bucks for the download link even though I wasn't an actor in the show, but they did have the video of the audience at the end.. It sounds lame and probably was. It was also epic fun.

The Shrek ride was rated for kids and had a shorter line. It was next to Romcom so we went there next. It was a typical dark ride with everyone sitting in boats going by scenes from the movie. Think of it as being similar to Disney's 'It's a Small World' ride with less annoying music and a better plot.

There were two horror based rides based on Movie Max series; the first was named July Eighteenth which was based on the alien invasion movie of the same name. There was a big sign in the front, 'Age 17+ Intense simulated violence'. This one was a theatre in the round style 'ride' and was extremely intense including a scene where aliens started dissecting a live and awake woman as the lights went dark. No visuals of the cutting, but a little too real and those screams! It was like a very realistic Halloween horror movie and when you see the warning for this ride, believe them!